At 86, Don King Is ‘Semiretired’ but Still Working Every Angle

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By his own admission, Don King, above, in 2015, has not promoted a “real” heavyweight champion in 20 years. He is back in New York to try with Bermane Stiverne, who will challenge the W.B.C. champion Deontay Wilder on Saturday at Barclays Center.CreditBrynn Anderson/Associated Press

By Wallace Matthews

Nov. 3, 2017

Nearly 45 years ago, after a heavyweight title fight in Kingston, Jamaica, Don King uttered a line that might well serve as his epitaph: “I came into the ring with the champion,” he said, “and I left with the champion.”

What made the remark both exceptionally funny and extraordinarily revealing was that King was not talking about the same champion. King had accompanied Joe Frazier on his way into the ring, but climbed out with his arm around George Foreman, who had just scored one of boxing’s most shocking upsets.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon and a Midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom. King, who by his own admission has not promoted a “real” heavyweight champion in 20 years, was back in town with another heavyweight, Bermane Stiverne — never to be mistaken for Foreman or Frazier — who will challenge the W.B.C. champion Deontay Wilder on Saturday night at Barclays Center.

In the course of introducing Stiverne from the podium, King, for an instant, flashed back to that moment nearly a half-century ago.

“Deontay said if he loses, he will retire,” King said in his characteristic bellow. “Well, he will lose, so I want to put in my request now. Deontay, when you come out of retirement, come on over and see me.”

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King, standing, spoke at a news conference in 1974 in Zaire as Muhammad Ali held the head of his cornerman, Drew Bundini Brown, in the lead-up to the Rumble in the Jungle, a heavyweight fight between George Foreman and Ali.CreditAssociated Press

That was King in 1973 and that is King now, always promoting, always working the art of the hustle and, above all else, always working every possible angle.

“I’m planning for the future,” he said.

Never mind that King turned 86 in August and is in less than robust health. He is somewhat unsteady of gait, and his famous crown of gray hair has noticeably wilted.

While his rival of the past half-century, Bob Arum, continues to promote on a regular basis, King has been something of a recluse for nearly a decade. His New York office, in a brownstone at East 69th Street and Madison Avenue, has long been shuttered. He now works with a skeleton staff and a reduced stable of fighters out of Deerfield Beach, Fla. Those who know him say he has not been the same since the death in 2010 of his wife, Henrietta, after nearly 50 years of marriage.

“That is an un-fillable void,” he said. “That woman stood by me, man, and any success that I attained is because of her. She never tried to change me or do nothing but enhance and strengthen my spirit. She may have vacated the house she rented here on earth, but to me, spiritually, she never died.”

King has not been involved in a notable heavyweight title fight in New York for more than a dozen years. So invisible has the self-styled world’s greatest promoter been that a boxing website recently ran an article with the headline, “Whatever Happened to Don King?”

“You can call me semiretired,” he said. “But I just got to find the right fighter that really wants to fight. The sport is not the same. These guys are not dedicated and committed to the sport like the older guys were. They all want to read the headlines, and when you go out and extol them virtuously and say things about them, they believe the things to the extent they don’t have to do nothing. They believe it’s going to be like osmosis, it’s going to fall from the sky.”

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King lifting Mike Tyson after he beat Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas in 1986 to become the heavyweight champion.CreditDoug Pizac/Associated Press

In other words, the fight game ain’t what it used to be, and neither is King, although some things remain comfortably familiar.

He came dressed in his usual regalia, a bejeweled and faded denim jacket emblazoned with his catchphrase, “Only in America,” over a white shirt and a tie with an American flag theme. A scarf in the stars-and-stripes motif encircled his shoulders, and from his neck hung enough gold-and-diamond-encrusted chains to hobble Mr. T.

Once he got behind a microphone, the huckster that lives within King animated his aged and weary frame. Ostensibly there to introduce Stiverne — who lost his portion of the title to Wilder by decision in 2015 and who remains the only fighter to go the distance with the unbeaten 6-foot-7, 225-pound puncher — King spent more time professing his love for Wilder and President Trump.

King endorsed Trump for president, and they worked together promoting Mike Tyson’s title fights in Atlantic City in the 1980s. In Trump, King sees the type of rebel he himself was in the early 1970s, after he finished a prison term for a manslaughter conviction and proceeded to flip the boxing business on its ear.

In Wilder, he sees that there is still money to be made in heavyweight boxing, and who better to make it than him?

“I really like Deontay,” King said. “I’m not putting anybody down, but Deontay would be a household name if he had someone like me working with him.”

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Deontay Wilder before his heavyweight title fight against Gerald Washington in Birmingham, Ala., in February. Wilder is undefeated.CreditAlbert Cesare/Associated Press

It was an echo of his 1999 attempt to pry Oscar De La Hoya away from Arum by whispering to him in the ring moments after he lost a controversial decision to Felix Trinidad, “If I was your promoter, you’d have won this fight.”

That pitch failed, but many others have succeeded. King tried working his brand of salesmanship from the podium, assuring Wilder that he would lose to Stiverne — according to several online betting sites, Wilder is a 10-1 favorite — while at the same time trying to convince him that the loss would benefit him in the long run.

“Don’t worry, Deontay, even Muhammad Ali had to lose to become a legend,” King said. “You take this loss, it will be good for you. It will humble you. Then I’ll bring you back.”

Stiverne turned 39 on Wednesday — King sang “Happy Birthday” to him from the podium — and he probably represents King’s last chance at promoting a heavyweight champion. Unless, of course, he can manage to cajole his way into the other guy’s corner.

“Tyson, he was the last real heavyweight champion,” said King, who has been estranged from Tyson over accusations of financial improprieties. “He was a phenomenal fighter. He was remarkable. You don’t know when another will come along, but that’s what keeps us going. You never know when you might strike gold.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: King, 86 and ‘Semiretired,’ Is Still Working Every Angle. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe